Worming his way into Un's heart

The spectacle of basketball bad boy Dennis Rodman side-by-side with dictator bad boy Kim Jong Un will go down in the annals as one nutty partnership.

The spectacle of basketball bad boy Dennis Rodman side-by-side with dictator bad boy Kim Jong Un will go down in the annals as one nutty partnership.

Vice Media somehow set up this improbable scenario, tempting officials in North Korea, one of the world's most strictly controlled countries, to open its doors by offering the Harlem Globetrotters. That gained them entree, along with donations of basketball hoops and scoreboards. Then Vice got Rodman "the Worm" to come along.

Rodman's gaudy face piercings, multiple tattoos, flashy sunglasses and theatrical garb provided a wild contrast to the uniformly gray-suited North Koreans. Rodman kept his cap and shades on and wore a tail coat to watch the exhibition game last Thursday, for which Un joined him in a ringside seat. Un, 29, is the little-known son of deceased former dictator Kim Jong Il and grandson of the nation's founder Kim Il Sung.

Rodman enthused after his trip that the sport could provide an avenue for diplomacy. He shrugged off the fact that North Korea develops and tests nuclear weapons or that its leaders, including Un himself, have threatened the United States with destruction.

North Koreans have few freedoms and fewer natural resources. They have suffered decades under a repressive regime. Prison camps house tens of thousands of citizens considered or even slightly suspected of being enemies of the state. Tens of thousands have starved to death.

Still, sport does forge international bonds. Every four years, nations from around the world come together in Olympic arenas and on playing fields to vie for athletic supremacy.

Rodman noted after his return that Un and President Barack Obama both love basketball. Un, he said, wants Obama to call.

Not too likely. However cordial the fledgling relationship between the novice dictator and the retired hoops star, no exhibition basketball game can erase this insular nation's dark history or its ever-present nuclear threat to its neighbors and the world. But in a world of spectacles and records, maybe the sport could begin to thaw the deadly icebox that is North Korea.

Bring Michael Jordan out of retirement. Double team Kim Jong Il. Keep the good news of the Wild West coming to the North Korean people.

Maybe, over time, basketball could succeed where military posturing and diplomatic talks have failed.